Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/213

Rh ship which he had built in time, and the fish swam up to him and carried the ship beyond the northern mountain. There the ship was fastened to a tree, and as the flood subsided, Manu gradually descended. "The flood then swept away all these creatures, and Manu alone remained here."

The legends relating to the creation of the world are also interesting. There is a beautiful Vedic simile in which the Sun pursuing the Dawn is compared to a lover pursuing a maiden. This gave rise to the legend which is found in the Brahmanas, that Prajapati, the supreme god, felt a passion for his daughter, and this was the origin of creation. This legend in the Brahmanas was further developed in the Puranas, where Brahma is represented as enamoured of his daughter, and all these myths arose from a simple metaphor in the Rig-Veda about the Sun following the Dawn. That such is the origin of the Puranic fables was known to Hindu thinkers and commentators, as will appear from the following well-known argument of Kumarila, the great opponent of Buddhism and the predecessor of Sankaracharya:—

"It is fabled that Prajapati, the Lord of Creation, did violence to his daughter. But what does it mean?